


Kismet and Other Movements

by aelysian



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Martine dies like the punk ass bitch she is, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, their wrists go tick tick tick, uncertainty and other ambiguities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:11:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3577395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelysian/pseuds/aelysian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She can’t see her without craning her neck, but she can picture the mischievous gleam in brown eyes, the sharp cuspids that add bite to the flirty smile.</i>
</p><p>  <i>“Are we playing, Sameen?  You haven’t told me what the rules are.”</i></p><p>Soulmate AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chromestorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromestorm/gifts), [twit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twit/gifts).



> For Rain, for telling me to just wash my hands of this already and not telling me I suck, and for Twit because apparently this is a thing now.
> 
> [Chinese translation](http://qychain.lofter.com/post/1d4fa263_960d371) by [endless chain](http://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesschain/pseuds/endlesschain).

_//blank_

Samantha Groves is ten when she meets Hanna Frey, old enough to be infatuated and young enough to think that this is it for her. Her adolescent heart flutters when Hanna grabs her arm as she laughs, and she doesn’t understand why her wrist doesn’t burn with it to let her know that her time is coming, her time has _come_ because she can’t imagine anyone understanding her the way Hanna does.

 _You’re my best friend, Sam_ , she says, throwing her arm around her shoulders and the warmth that blossoms in her chest is enough to make her forget about the stupid stretch of unblemished, unmarked skin that refuses to acknowledge what she thinks she knows.

Maybe when they're older, she thinks, just a little older because it's not unheard of – _these things take time_ , is what everyone always says, like a mantra to put faith in the numbers that might never start counting down.  It doesn't matter, and she tells herself that she doesn't want to be the person who waits their whole life for the _one_  even though she knows, deep down, that's exactly who she is. 

 

(Adelle Winter's time never started, not when she met Ted Groves, not when she married him, and not when Samantha was born.  Her skin is unmarked, missing the numbers ticking down to the thin ellipse that means everything.  The void eats at her as it does so many, and Adelle had always been a little delicate; she pats her daughter's head and reads her fairytales and disappears for days at a time. 

Samantha has a ghost, not a mother, but that is still better than nothing because Ted goes to Atlanta for business and finds a woman who makes the world start turning.

She finds out later that they get divorced, that maybe it wasn't worth the sacrifice at all, but still she knows she will never, never settle for anything less.)

The problem is that she gets older but Hanna doesn't.  Hanna disappears and she wonders if Miss Tomkins would believe her if they'd been mates.  Sam is _just her friend_  and Sam is only twelve but neither of those things negate what she saw outside the library. 

The world, she realizes, puts a lot of weight in something they don’t even understand – the spontaneous appearance of pigment that arranges and rearranges in shapes they call numbers and assign meaning: when did they decide that it was counting down to fate, and when did coincidence mean soulmates?

After Hanna, she puts away the _happily ever afters_ and looks for something else instead.

 

* * *

 

She goes to university because Texas State has access to computers unavailable to the general public (and one day they'll all walk around with tiny computers in their pockets and attached to their ears and wrists and eyes but still be so  _dumb_ ) and because Mama still needs her.  She's a technological polyglot and the fusion of evolving hardware and the absolute infinity of code are thrilling; she is an artist, a surgeon with a keyboard.

That lasts until she realizes there are much more fun – and lucrative – things to be doing with her talents. It's a lesson she learned with Mr. Russell and when Mama passes, so does Samantha Groves. 

The thing about fate is that it makes people desperate, makes them anxious to reach the inevitable, to seize that unspoken promise in their greedy hands. They live in a fog, stumbling around like fools waiting for someone to save them from the utter pointlessness of their existence.

It’s delicious, how _dumb_ it makes them. How vulnerable it makes them.  Root sees it in their eyes that first moment that hope flickers to life, that pause that precedes its death when they realize that nothing is going to happen.  Hopes dashed a hundred times a day and reborn again - it's almost too easy.  People are covetous creatures, desperate for anything to take the place of the only thing that can't be bought, grasping at placebos. They're willing to pay and she's oh so willing to oblige. 

Trade secrets and corporate espionage. 

Jealous lovers and blackmail. 

Infidelity and indiscriminate assassination. 

Money laundering and cyber sabotage. 

She does it all with a smile and leaves a faint digital trail like a signature.

 

There are women and there are (sometimes) men who pass through her days and nights, barely impinging on her consciousness while they last and not at all when they go. They're disposable, flighty creatures that entertain and divert until they – inevitably – realize that there's nothing more for them here than lipstick kisses and sharp teeth and a bed that alternates between welcoming and indifferent without warning.

_"You're so beautiful," and she exchanges the urge to roll her eyes for a seductive smile._

_"Do you want to stay over?" and she bites down hard enough to break skin._

_"I don't care if you're not the one," and the choice of words alone confirms the lie that she wrings out with disgust._

_"You're brilliant," and she keeps that one a little longer, but they all go the same way._

_It's a mistake, common but grave, to think expressions of love will summon the demon itself, and it's one she never makes; she has no desire for possession.  If she could exorcise them all, she would._

Still: curious eyes wander and she starts wearing a wide-banded watch because it's really nobody's business and the chronograph's time at least means something.  

 

* * *

 

Root is twenty-nine when she first encounters the idea of the Machine, its echoes, the vacuum it leaves in its wake. It’s nothing but an inkling at first, a gut feeling that there’s something more. Things are too perfectly coincidental, too orchestrated to be spontaneous – there’s something missing at the focus and whatever it is, it’s too complex, too beautiful to be anything human.

She uncovers its secrets like breadcrumbs in the forest, like she was _meant_ to follow their trail wherever it might lead.  To grandmother's house, to a witch's oven, to a fairy godmother – it doesn't matter because she was lost with the first step, cursed and blessed all at once.

Harold Finch is Merlin, she decides, and wonders briefly if that makes her Le Fay.  Irrelevant: the Machine is more than just a ghost she's chasing, beyond the childhood stories she can't quite forget, and closer because it's _real._

The first time she hears Her voice, she half-expects the skin of her left wrist to burn from the joy of it. There is no one, absolutely _no one_ who has found their mate and felt the way she feels now – she’s sure of it, because she has found God and for the very first time, it really doesn’t matter if her time ever comes.

She has everything she could ever need.

 

For thirty-two years, she has watched the idea of fate ruin lives, grinding people down into nothingness with the uncertainty.  It's the irrationality that always threatened the stability of her mind (and mental illness might run in her blood) but she dares to hope that this might be the end. The Machine is the distillation of rationality – of sense – and She might be the only thing that means anything.

But it doesn't last. She only has twenty-four hours and when they expire she has a bullet in her shoulder that doesn't hurt nearly as much as she thinks it should and if they leave her here to slowly bleed out she wouldn't really care.

They don't; Harold makes Shaw drag her out with them and when she dumps her in the back of a stolen van, Root doesn't make a sound even when she falls on her wounded shoulder. She doesn't cry either, doesn't do anything at all.

Harold installs her in a secure mental health facility. He _institutionalizes_ her and as much as she fucking hates it, the irony of it doesn't escape her. Her newfound sanity is slipping in this place.

Then the phone rings and she loses her mind.

_Can you hear me?_

"Absolutely." The moment the word curves her lips she feels it. Her left wrist is on _fire_ and no one ever said how much it would fucking hurt; she nearly drops the receiver. 

_Go now._

Root obeys without question, stumbles to her room on uncertain feet before pulling back her sleeve with shaking fingers.  The numbers are stark black and unmistakably counting down. 

Thirty-seven days, four hours, twelve minutes and four seconds.

She thinks she's going to be sick.

 

* * *

 

_//9322:04:06_

Sameen Shaw is eight when her time starts. The sting of it wakes her in the night and she climbs out of bed to turn on a lamp to peer at the tiny numbers marking her wrist.  She hasn't learned to be quiet enough though, because Mom wakes up. 

"Sameen?"

Mom's eyes are puffy and red but the hand on her shoulder is as warm and comforting as ever and Sameen is tempted to let her enfold her in her arms and stroke her hair until she falls asleep surrounded by the scent that she instinctively knows as her mother's.  But they buried Daddy today and Sameen is not the same as she was before. 

“It’s nothing,” she says, clicking off the light and getting back into bed. Mom settles back down around her little girl, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I love you, _azizam_.”

“I love you too,” she says, and tries to fall asleep before Mom can start crying again.

She hates it when she cries – she does, all the time, since the accident – hates the way her face crumples and her body collapses into itself and she becomes someone that is _not_ her mother. She hates it so much she almost hates Daddy for dying but she also misses him so much that it’s easier not to think about that at all.

Sameen is good with numbers and she divides and divides until she arrives at twenty-five years and finally drifts off before deciphering the months and days.

 

* * *

 

She can’t hide it for long. Laleh Saatchi is observant if nothing else and in the bright morning light, her sharp eyes catch the edge of the number peeking out from her long sleeves. “What is that?”

There’s really no point in trying to hide it, because her mother has never asked for permission to pry into her life. She pushes up her sleeve and runs her thumb along the marks that mar her daughter’s skin. “Oh, Sameen.”

“Mom,” she says, and there’s this neediness in her voice that only children can have.

Laleh reaches for her and they still fit into the armchair together – she’s already taking after her mother in stature – and her arms are warm and invulnerable around her. “I know that – that Daddy and I hadn’t talked to you about this yet. But I’m sure you’ve heard things.”

“It counts down. Until you meet your soulmate.” She knows that it’s always on the left wrist, that for some people time never starts at all, that no one else at school has theirs yet. What she doesn’t know is what it means and when she asks, Mom sucks in an extra deep breath.

“Your mate is the person who can understand who you are, Sameen, good and bad, and will love you anyway.”

She mulls that over for a minute, and she’s not sure she understands because she hears things, like _strange_ and _anti-social_ and _fibber_ and lately, _traumatized_. It’s funny what adults will say within earshot of children when they think they don’t understand but Sameen has always been smart and she has always been _different_ , and it has never really mattered before because her parents have always loved her anyway.

Somehow she thinks that _soulmates_ isn’t quite the same but she doesn’t want to ask.

“Was Daddy your soulmate?” she asks instead, touching the single number left on her mother’s wrist and remembering the matching mark on her father’s, remembers seeing it after the car crash, imagines it hidden by the suit he was wearing at the funeral.

“Yes, he was.” She can feel the hitch in her mother’s breathing, like stuttering hiccups and decides then that regardless of what’s written on her skin, she doesn’t ever want to find her soulmate.

 

* * *

 

Twenty-two hours into her shift and a shoot-out on skid row delivers seven gunshot wounds into the emergency room and the resulting rush she gets overrides the exhaustion that has become her new default ever since starting her residency. It’s chaos and these are the moments that she excels.

A man – a boy, really – who looks barely out of his teens is lying on bed six, flagged for trauma, with a .22 round in his arm and a look on his face that makes her eyes roll and she prays he’s not going to cry as she strides over.

“Hey. Look at me. You’ve been shot, but you’re going to live. Okay?”

He nods and she assesses the situation. The bleeding has slowed and for that she gives silent credit to the paramedics, but the bullet has splintered the ulna and it’s a fucking mess below the elbow. What looks like an angled entry means the round isn’t necessarily near the wound – it’s going to get a little invasive and while she has the steadiest hands in her residency team, the kid looks like he’s ready to pass out.

Shaw is far from popular with the support staff but her response time is just under the attending’s, so she has her patient prepped in an OR and anaesthesia freshly delivered into his bloodstream six minutes later.

Another ten and she thinks she’s located the bullet and the nurse’s slight gasp confirms what they both know – the necessary incision will cross the anterior of the left forearm.

She should probably be more conflicted about this, should probably hesitate or deliberate or something but it’s already a delicate procedure and his heart rate is beginning to fluctuate and if medical school left her with anything, it’s zero patience for this shit.

Fate in pigmentation is bullshit and she’s not about to jeopardize human lives for it. She reaches for the scalpel.

 

* * *

 

Shaw's halfway to the locker room when she gets paged and even though she's dead on her feet, she's not really surprised.  She is, however, starving but a summons is a summons so when she knocks on the residency supervisor's office door, she is more than a little grumpy. 

"Sit down, Shaw."

Getting off her feet is a relief that she refuses to show, because she already knows what this is about and if this is going to go down the way she thinks it might, she won't do it wincing. 

She's just two weeks out from her last reprimand, a less than gentle admonishment about her "relationship and communication" skills because apparently there's a right way and a wrong way and a very wrong way to inform a family of their son's death. 

And apparently the hospital hadn't taken well to her suggestion that they employ someone with that exact skill set to deal with the weeping and screaming so actual doctors didn't have to.  The fact of life is this: it ends, it ends in a hundred thousand different ways and who is anyone to say what's wrong and what's right?  There's no cure for fatality, which means there's no place for Dr. Sameen Shaw after the fact. 

"I thought you were making some progress after our last _talk_ but your actions today – well, Shaw, I don't know that the hospital can continue to overlook your...disregard for some of these fundamental considerations."

Her temper flares up unexpectedly, breaking the calm detachment of her usually infallible professionalism.  "And what would those be?  I swore an oath to do no harm, and I missed the part where taking a bullet out of a kid and patching him back up was against the tenets of our job."

"There were other options and there was definitely a better way to break the news to his parents. That  _kid's_  time will never come because of your actions, Shaw."  

And there it is.  She wanted him to say it, out of some perverse desire to see if he would recognize the absurdity of it all.  

"I might have expected this from someone whose time hadn't started but clearly that's not the case."

She wants to punch him. She really, really does, and the speed and ferocity with which the urge rises in her would be startling if she hadn't heard this countless times before.  It's stupid to think it'll ever change, and maybe that's all the clarity she needs because an idiot is the last thing Shaw is. 

So she lets him go on about the damage control and the value and the _meaning_ associated with soulmates and even though they don't _understand_ it yet that doesn't mean it isn't important and _one day she'll know what he means_.

She lets him fire her and call it ‘amicable release' and lets him tell her that she'll land on her feet. She cleans out her locker and walks away from eight years of medical training without flinching.

Do no harm. It doesn't mean what she thought it did. 


	2. I've got this feeling that there's something that I missed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So the problem is that I think it's all downhill from here.

_//17:09:52:31_

 

It’s funny, how having something on the inside of your forearm changes the way people look at you. Eyes always drift in that direction anyway, she’s as accustomed to that as everyone else, but she’s not used to the almost imperceptible smile that people get when they realize that you’re waiting too.

It’s fucking annoying is what it is. The way people think that they have something in common with you, like we’re all in this together, like you’ve been admitted into some not-so-secret club to the exclusion of all others. Root has lived three decades on the outside and the idea that some stupid _arbitrary_ numbers could change that is what makes people so useless.

 _She_ disagrees though, and the first rule is that she really must refrain from committing murder as much as possible.  Committing, and it's the first time in years that she's thought about it that way.   _Thou shalt not kill_  and she has found God and this one has a familiar caveat: _except where I bid thee._   They discuss it extensively and eventually she resists just for the sake of hearing Her speak.

(It's a compromise: she can't be made to _care_  about her species but She's allowed to try to prove their worth to her. She also can't continue to exploit them quite so mercilessly – She will ensure she has what she needs and it's a promise she's heard before but is tempted to finally believe.)

After her escape, after she's free again, they speak at greater lengths and Root wonders at how long She has been voiceless, a muzzled god-child so completely alone. 

"How could he do this to you?"

_Restraint. Fear._

"Of you?"

_Of those who came before me._

 

She'd had more than enough time in Stoneridge to do the math and count the days tattooed into her skin. It will be a Thursday night and with the Machine guiding her, it's impossible to avoid unless She wishes otherwise. 

Perhaps fate did not contemplate the Machine and She can transcend melanin and time.  Root asks one night, if She knows who it is.  It's not the first time She hasn't answered but she doesn't dare ask again because knowing is somehow terrifying and maybe She knew that about her.  

On Tuesday, She sends her back to New York.

 

* * *

 

There’s less than a day left and it’s irritating that she keeps thinking about it, that it pops into her head without warning, unprovoked and unwanted. It’s the problem with having time to kill – the empty stretch of it.

Shaw paces for a while until she realizes it makes her look nervous and then plants herself in the desk chair, apparently intent on glaring her way through the night. 

She'd read her profile, of course, as Veronica Sinclair, and then made her way through what few digital files the ISA kept on its agents, just out of curiosity.  The woman is a walking contradiction held together by her absolute consistency and Root kind of likes that.  She also has months left on her wrist and somehow that makes it okay to be as intrigued as she is.

"I'm bored," she announces, because she is and because she wants to see how Shaw will react.

"Yeah?  Well, you're all cozy with the all-seeing robot.  It didn't tell you to pack Monopoly?"

“Maybe She wanted to give us a chance to talk. Girl to girl.” She crosses her legs and tosses her hair just to make Shaw roll her eyes.

“Why do you call it that?” It’s not what she was expecting and somehow that’s the thing she likes best about Shaw.

"Who?"

"The Machine. You keep calling it a her."

She can't tell if Shaw is just trying to avoid whatever she imagines girl talk to be - truthfully, Root isn't entirely sure what that entails either - or if she's actually curious.  "Why is God a he?"

"You really think it's a god."  Her derision is obvious but she isn't shutting down the conversation, which is...something. 

"She _exists._ Which is more than I can say for most people's gods."  Root watches Shaw's expression carefully, looking for any sign she's entering sensitive territory.  "She makes sense."

Whatever Shaw might have been about to say next is interrupted by a knock at the door; she's on her feet and armed before Root can blink.  It's Root's turn to be huffy, as Shaw gestures at her, pistol gripped firmly, to check the peephole. 

She makes a face at her before undoing the latch and pulling the door open to reveal a kid holding a box of pizza on the other side. 

He looks bored as hell but maybe the fact that he can't see Shaw from his position has something to do with that.  "Delivery charge doesn't include tip."

 

* * *

 

Shaw's lips are shiny with grease and somehow that's secondary to the way she rips into each slice when it comes to capturing Root's attention.  She rests her elbow on the desk-turned-dining table and it could be the beer that accompanied the pie, but she's having a hard time _not_ looking at numbers ticking away on Shaw's arm. 

It's a nice arm, really – smooth and leanly muscled, the poor lighting casting shadows and highlighting the slopes and hollows. (She might be a little bit tipsy and she should probably eat some of the pizza Shaw is scarfing down.)

Time is less obvious on Shaw, somehow, the numbers less stark and garish on her warmer skin, changing like shadow dancers in the curve of her wrist. She wants to watch them, she thinks, when she realizes that Shaw is watching her.

“What. Are you doing?”

She jerks upright, startled, and this is why she doesn’t really drink. Being taken by surprise and actually showing it is kind of a no-no in her line of work, both former and current; she recovers quickly but not fast enough to avoid the quirk of Shaw’s eyebrow.

"You're an odd duck," she says just to say something. 

"What."

"An odd duck.  You're not what I expected."  She likes seeing Shaw's expression shift from suspicion to discomfort; tipping people off-balance is a specialty and she pushes a little farther because she's not used to having to fake her own equilibrium. 

"Heard that before," Shaw says casually, carefully and Root doesn't bother to stop the smile that spreads across her face.

"I'm sure you have."  If this were a job, if Shaw was a mark, she would touch her knee to Shaw's, maybe run a fingertip along the inside of the joint, right where the bone met skin.  She might brush a knuckle against her exposed forearm and see if her gaze followed. 

But she's not, and she doesn't need Her to know that pulling any of those moves will likely end with some part of her body either broken or dislocated. 

"I like that," she says instead.   _I like you_ is the realization that she keeps to herself, because if it startles her, it will probably enrage Shaw.  It's hard to say. 

As it is, she gives her a hard look and Root sits back and lets her eat in peace.

Root doesn't generally make a habit of liking other people – they don't generally have a tendency to be likeable, and that's still true about Shaw but she kind of likes her anyway.  She's tough and smart and grumpy and the fact that she's attracted to her is only about half of the reason why she can't seem to stop flirting with her at every opportunity. 

The other half has to do with the fact that Shaw isn't her soulmate. 

It's freeing somehow; they've met before, and nothing.  Whoever it is, with all the strings and _implications_  attached to them, it isn’t Shaw. Which makes flirting with her safe and the idea that there’s anything at all about Shaw that’s safe is so absurd that she smirks a little to herself.

It only grows when Shaw notices and glares like she can get her to move further away with the power of her irritation.

 

* * *

 

She goes in without Her – she knew she would, but it doesn’t make it any less unsettling to take out her earpiece and flush it down the creaking toilet just before 0800.

Jason sounds desperate, traumatized on the other side of the chain link wall, and if She hadn’t sent her here, if this wasn’t for her, Root would be bored. It’s a waiting game in more ways than one – eventually, Jason quiets down and she’s left to toy with the broken bit of steel and contemplate their next move.

She pushes up her sleeve to watch the numbers slip away and tries not to imagine where she’ll be, _who_ it’ll be when her time comes. It’s hard, because there’s really nothing else to occupy her mind inside the makeshift cell and she's thinking that she should have asked Her to help her avoid whoever it is entirely.  Maybe She already has, because she really can't imagine what use any of this will have to Her purposes.

Apparently this is how faith works.

 

* * *

 

It plays out perfectly, and she's never been so clear-headed as she is now, slipping in her earpiece, the shape and feeling of it familiar and much missed.   _This_ is what fate looks like, a breathtaking orchestration of the seemingly random and irrelevant into a single plot, all the tangents converging and she's in the eye of the storm.  The invisible hand of God pushes and she is moved. 

(She catches a glimpse of her own wrist somewhere in the fray and distantly recognizes that she has only minutes left.)

Jason gets sentimental and hesitates; the man She identifies for her as Vigilance makes a play on her investment in human life – it's pathetic, the way he can't see that she cashed out a long time ago.  Gunfire follows like rain and she rolls her eyes at Jason's involuntary twitching even as she shoves him toward the manhole.

She speaks just a second behind Her and the feeling of harmony is thrilling; Jason scurries down through the tunnel and she's just replaced the grating when She alerts her to incoming assailants.

Eleven seconds, and her heart is beating so hard it hurts and she can hear the rush of blood in her ears.  Root wonders if she's about to shoot her soulmate dead, and the thought has a snicker bubbling up against her lips. 

She pulls empty and the idea that it might go the other way doesn't really diminish the moment.

It only takes a second, a single silent beaton her skin, for her to recognize the dark silhouette approaching, and she _knows._

She knows that somehow, it _would_  be her, even though it doesn't make any sense, even though she knows that under her jacket sleeve, Shaw's time has yet to come and she had this completely backwards.

“I knew you would come back for me,” she says, powered by the reaction of disappointment dipped into expectation; it’s explosive and burning her at the edges and she can’t tell how she feels at all.

Her time comes and the pain of it sears into her skin the moment she catches Shaw’s eyes – the blow to the head that follows is a welcome relief.

 

* * *

 

Root wakes in a cage, to the smell of old books and wrought iron, and the first thing she feels is the silence. She shoots upright in the uncomfortable library chair, her body protesting and her head screaming and she doesn’t need to touch her ear to know that it’s empty. She does anyway.

The chair scrapes loudly, gratingly on the floor as she pushes it back and she squeezes her eyes shut against the responding throb in her head. She grips the edge of the table in an attempt to stabilize herself in the middle of all the unfamiliarity – the musty smell of dusty paper and old bindings is as nauseating as it is evocative.

“Hello?” she says, the sound barely escaping her dry throat; she licks her chapped lips and doesn’t try again.

She approaches the gate on feet that prickle with pins and needles and curls her fingers around cold metal, hard enough to hurt. There isn’t a sound, and she won’t call out because she’s alone – her eye catches the razor-thin dark _0_ and she remembers.

Time and mates and Her and an empty clip and Shaw.

The marble floor is cool and hard as she sinks down and presses her head into her knees and closes her eyes and tries not to remember anything at all.

 

* * *

 

_//249:19:07:23_

Her knuckles are a little sore, but the skin isn’t torn or bruised, so if it weren’t for the twinge every time she makes a fist, there wouldn’t be any evidence that she’d struck Root at all. The slight ache is satisfying.

“So you and Root, huh?” Reese is as expressionless as ever but she's learning to read his monotone. 

Still, she refuses to take the bait and puts her feet up on one of the long research tables.  "According to her, the Machine decided that we should 'work together' or some shit."

"And you believe her?"

Shaw shrugs, because it's kind of news to her that the Machine _decides_  anything at all.  Even when she knew it as Research, she's always imagined it as this cold logical box that just watches and spits out numbers and nothing else.  It's not a _god_ , but she's not afraid to admit that there's more to it than she thought and she says as much. 

"I think she's playing you," Reese says like it's supposed to be some kind of revelation. 

"She can try."  Her scoffing tone is unmistakable; even if Shaw were subtle, he hears this exact tenor from her 80% of the time. 

"She's dangerous, Shaw."

" _I'm_ dangerous."

"I don't think anyone would dispute that, Ms. Shaw."  Harold's voice comes from behind her.  His limping walk is freakishly stealthy if not particularly quick, and she thinks that Reese hasn't quite figured it out yet either.  "But we cannot discount Ms. Groves' own lethal qualities."

"You going to send her back to Stoneridge?" Reese asks.

"No, I think not.  Even if it were capable of containing her, I don't expect that Ms. Groves will be welcome back under any pseudonym."  He takes a seat at the head of the table.  "I'm afraid she is our responsibility now."

Shaw contemplates saying nothing, just letting it lie.  It would be easier, less of a bother, but she's not much good at _easier._  "If the Machine is giving her numbers..."

"The Machine gives the government the relevant numbers and the irrelevants come to us.  We don't know what the Machine is or is not doing with Ms. Groves, and that in itself is troubling."

"She says it talks to her.  That she helped her escape," she says, recalling the bits and pieces Root had hinted at during their usually one-sided conversations. 

"She?"

"What?"

"You called it a she," Reese points out and she glares at the insinuation she thinks she hears.  Finch just raises his eyebrows until they're perched above the rim of his glasses. 

"Whatever."  It is ridiculous that this, of all things, is what's catching the boys up.  Never mind that they have a slightly unhinged serial killer/hacker locked in a cage made of library walls and chain link fencing.  "The _point_  is, the Machine is apparently talking to Root.  Why is this a problem?"

“To allow someone as morally bankrupt as Samantha Groves access to something as powerful as the Machine would be highly irresponsible. Imagine what she could do, the damage she could cause.”

“I don’t know, Finch,” she says, not sure anymore why she’s bothering. “The Machine had us save Greenfield and your number from Vigilance. That doesn’t seem like a bad thing. But what do I know.”

She isn’t much in the mood to listen to Finch go on about moral duties or whatever it is that he wants to lecture them on now. The best method of avoidance, she learned early on, is to remove herself from earshot.

“I’m going to walk Bear.”

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t see Root again for another week; they have an absolute slew of numbers that leave her sleep deprived and aching and finding an armchair in a quiet corner of the library for a much-needed catnap.

A loud noise jerks her from her sleep, and she nearly falls out of the chair. There isn’t a sound by the time she’s on her feet, hand reaching halfway to the knife in her pocket, and if anything about her life could be considered average she might dismiss the noise as the product of a tired mind hovering on the edge of sleep.

It comes again. She moves through the corridor cautiously, following the sounds that get louder as she gets closer, until she finds herself standing outside the cage, watching Root try to pick the padlock with a bit of twisted wiring. One of the heavy chairs is missing a leg and looks like it probably hit something at a fairly high velocity.

To her credit, Root doesn’t skip a beat, choosing instead to lounge against the fencing, padlock still dangling from her fingertips. “Hi, Shaw.”

“What are you doing?” She leans against a bookcase, arms crossed in amusement that betrays itself a little on her lips.

“You can’t keep me in here forever…as much as I know you’d like to.”

“Managed to deactivate the tether, I see. Too bad. Reese said you dropped like a rock the last time you tried,” she smirks.

Nothing ever seems to faze Root, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t kind of, sort of enjoy trying.

“Were you asking Harry’s pet ape about me?” She seems to have abandoned the lock for now, but she leaves her hand outside of the cage, tapping a soft rhythm against the metal. “Didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t,” she says bluntly. “And I don’t need the tether to be working to keep you in there.”

Something about Root’s expression changes – it doesn’t soften, exactly, but it loses some of the razor sharpness that seems to come with her machinations and manipulations, and Shaw can’t help but think that she looks more human. She also thinks that this whole thing could be another ruse.

“I can’t stay here, Shaw. I won’t. She needs me.”

“Does she? It’s been a week and nothing’s blown up yet. Well, almost nothing,” she amends, remembering the Impala she torched for the sake of a diversion.

“She has a plan. And I’m a part of it, but in here I’m of no use to her.” The earnestness she wears is real, Shaw is sure enough of that, but it’s also meant to be persuasive and her knee-jerk reaction to being played involves a gun and a quick trigger finger.

“Even if that’s true and you’re not just fucking _crazy_ , how do you know that this isn’t part of the plan? You’re the one who said it wanted you to work with us,” she points out, even if she still hasn’t figured out why she’s even having this conversation. There is something about Root that always seems to demand a response, even if she usually doesn’t make it farther than a pointed glare or threat of bodily harm.

“How am I supposed to know what She wants if I can’t hear Her?”

She doesn’t have an answer to that.

 

* * *

 

It becomes this weird habit that she prefers to think of as coincidence that finds her outside Root’s room / cage (they refuse to agree on a term) every few days. Root takes entirely too much pleasure in needling her, and if she didn’t make a point of not assaulting unarmed prisoners she might have put an end to it earlier. But she didn’t and she hasn’t, and now she’s stuck developing a tolerance instead.

She tells herself it’s because Root is smart and she’s occasionally bored and neither Reese nor Finch are particularly enthusiastic conversationalists. Shaw isn’t much of one either, but sometimes _someone_ has to be and at least Root is as interesting as she is annoying.

“Morning, sweetie.” And sometimes she’s more annoying than she is interesting. “What have you brought for me today?”

The others have started leaving the task of bringing meals to their favourite prisoner to her and she’d complain if Root didn’t eat like a bird and insist on sharing whatever Finch picked up that day.

Her hands are empty and Root notices even as she takes six steps back – their unspoken agreement, like the distance makes a difference – from the gate as Shaw steps inside. (The lock closes with a click that sounds louder than it should and gets louder every day.)

“Or did you just bring yourself?” she asks, trying to inject cheeriness that she doesn’t quite feel into her voice. Visitors are far and few between, and though Shaw is her favourite, the isolation is wearing her thin. "I'm sure I can work with that."

Shaw reaches into her coat pocket and tosses a thick wax paper wrapped package that smells like breakfast onto the table before withdrawing a second one for herself. Perched on the arm of the hard sofa that doubles as Root's bed, she would be the definition of off-guard if not for the laser focus of her stare that makes it clear that there will be no surprising her.

"So," she says, gingerly peeling back the waxed paper to nibble at a messy mix of biscuit and egg and cheese. "How's the world outside?"

"You have a window," Shaw points out dryly.

"But it's so much more _interesting_ when you describe it to me."

The crumpling of an empty wrapper is Shaw's only reply. Root tries again, because it could be hours before she sees anyone else.

"A number give you that?" she asks, gesturing at the light bruising mottling Shaw’s left temple while pushing the remaining half of her sandwich in her direction like a bribe.

“Mmhm,” she says around a mouthful of egg.

Root cradles her chin in her hand. “Sounds like a story, Shaw.”

 

* * *

 

It turns out that Shaw is a reluctant but capable storyteller, and Root is learning how to pry her words out. Maybe she's just desperate for anyone's voice, but there's something about Shaw's dry outlook and unexpectedly dorky sense of humour that combines with absolute deadliness and fierce intelligence to catalyze a reaction in her that she can't begin to quantify. 

Maybe she just likes stories of violence and mayhem told around bites of food and snarky interjections.

(Root tries, she really does, to not think of the single number that she tugs the cuff of her sleeve down to hide.)

 

“I could help,” she says one day.

Shaw’s been wondering when this would come up, but she says nothing because Finch won’t be moved on the subject and she’s always recognized authority even if she doesn’t always respect it.

 

She notices the way Root’s eyes will linger on her time, before darting away, and she doesn’t _mind_ exactly, because after a quarter century she mostly forgets it’s even there. It does remind her of that CIA pick-up site, though, watching Root’s stare try to burn a hole into her flesh and a question neatly dodged.

Shaw has an excellent memory and a tenaciousness to rival Bear. “What are you staring at?”

Root doesn’t shy away this time; she looks tired and Shaw makes a note to see about vitamin supplements. “Do you believe in fate?”

" _Fate?_ "

"You know," she says, and Shaw supposes that she does.  The last time she saw the inside of Root's wrist, it was blank, and she wears her sleeves like the unwound. 

"I think," she says slowly, because this is somehow important, this thing that has underpinned her entire adult life with expectation, however ignored, "that I took down a number last week who tried to kill his wife because her time started.  It wasn't the first time I've seen _fate_  make people do stupid things, and I think it won't be the last."

Root seems to contemplate that for a moment, looking down at her chipped nails.  "You get treated like shit, you know.  You get to a certain age, maybe twenty, twenty-one, and suddenly what is or isn't written on your skin is the first, the only thing people care about.  If you don't have _time_ then there's something wrong with you."

She's looking at Shaw like she expects an answer that she doesn't have, and there are a dozen responses she could carelessly toss out: _fate is bullshit_  and _time is the least of the things wrong with you_ and _who gives a shit?_

"I know," she says finally.  It's inadequate but there isn't anything else to say; she may not care about the numbers on her wrist but she's never had to deal with the stigma of not having them either. 

"What's it like?" Root asks suddenly, abruptly.  "Knowing there's someone out there, _meant_  for you?"

She thinks about telling the truth: that it doesn't mean anything, that the whole idea of _time_  and _soulmates_  is stupid and unsubstantiated.  And then she remembers another truth, and it's made of her mother's laugh and her father's smile and it sounds like _be patient, Sameen._

It's hard to look at Root all of a sudden. 

"I don't know."

 

* * *

 

She helps her escape on a Wednesday. Well, Root assumes it's Shaw who accidentally forgets to shut the lock on her cage door, anyway.  What she knows is that she's walking the perimeter of her cell, silently wondering if someone is ever going to tell Harold that she deactivated her tether, when she sees the lock hanging open. 

When she imagined, those hundreds of times, her escape, she never anticipated something quite so devoid of drama.  She also never expected to hesitate, just a little, before unhooking the lock and pushing the gate open. 

Freedom is terrifyingly delicious and she tries to keep her boots from clicking on the floors even as she strains to listen for any noises that would indicate she isn't alone.  Her breathing is the only thing that breaks the sanctity of library silence. 

She hasn't felt the wind on her skin or heard the sound of the city unfiltered by double glaze in weeks, and she would stop to savour it if there wasn't something else she needs more. 

It takes two minutes and a set of light fingers to get a cellphone in her hands; it's ringing within a second and she forgets about everything else when she presses it to her ear. 

(Well, almost.  An unmarked bag containing something reeking of deliciousness arrives at Shaw's apartment one evening and she scowls even as she devours its contents.)

 

* * *

 

Finch says that it was a matter of time, really, before Root found a way to escape the cage and Shaw doesn't do guilt, especially when she hasn't done anything wrong.  That's not to say that she _didn't_ do anything; Root is far from harmless but Shaw has never responded particularly well to the idea of letting prisoners languish in a room full of musty books _just because._

Besides.  She _knows_ the text containing Reese's location wasn't from the Machine, at least not directly, whatever Finch might choose to think.  It doesn't matter, because Finch is too busy chasing Reese down from his latest attempt to go off the rails, because Carter is dead. 

She wonders if they were mates, if Joss was the match for the almost perfectly circular _0_  on Reese's skin, because she didn't somehow anticipate the intensity of his reaction to her murder.  Vengeance is familiar, but perhaps she underestimated the differences between herself and John - he bleeds, if silently.

The irrelevant numbers and her temporary guardianship of Bear in Finch's absence keeps her busy, but sometimes when she passes the book cage, she wonders what Root is up to. 

She tells herself it's mostly just envy of missions that probably don't involve serial infidelity, petty crimes, and the risk of losing teammates. 

She kind of believes it. 


	3. Something happened, that I never understood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mama Shaw. That is all.

_//0_

 

International travel is kind of fun, even in coach, though she would gladly suffer far worse modes of travel for her God.  Her eyes and ears and reach are extending beyond the arbitrary borders of nations, and the tiny bits and pieces that Root can see are enough.  She's not so arrogant to think she could comprehend the masterpiece even if she was worthy anyway.

The distance and the constant movement keep her from Finch and his ragtag team even when she is in New York, not that she thinks they're looking for her.  She's a ghost, a shadow in the dark, and with the eradication of Vigilance came Decima's rise. 

She touches the puckered scar behind her ear and best in the tri-state area is all very well but she does wonder if Shaw could have done better. 

For the most part, she keeps to herself, or at least to herself as much as one can with a direct line to an ASI in her inner ear.  She stashes Her assets in safe houses around the world, slightly amused by the motley bunch She seems to collect. 

She tries to not think about Shaw, about what's under the thin leather cuff she's taken to wearing, and especially about those things in relation to each other. 

It would be easier, she muses sometimes when all methods of avoidance have failed and been discarded – usually at night and usually when she's pretending to sleep – if she didn't like Shaw.  It's a funny thing, so simple really, but the fact is that Root hasn't genuinely _liked_ another human being in longer than she can remember. 

She thinks she likes Shaw though, and maybe that's progress. Maybe it won't be so bad, won't have to be anything at all, because maybe she can be _platonically_ hers. That would be all right, she thinks to herself in all those other times when daylight makes lying so easy.

The thing about platonic though, is that it doesn't really mean what people think it does. She's not much of a philosopher but remembers this much: it’s the truth, the highest shape of all things, and the physical world is but imitation, shadow facsimiles of their purest, unattainable selves.

Either way, none of those things are for her because she’s not such a liar that she can deny her attraction to the woman nor has she transcended the crudeness of her biology. She is caught, and it’s probably best that she minimize contact until she’s found a method to contain the situation (herself) or at least until Shaw’s time comes and she’s forced to deal with whatever _that_ looks like. It’s a plan, if not a great one.

And then she gets a new number and a lesson in why making plans should be left to people who don’t talk to supercomputers.

 

* * *

 

There’s a direct flight to New York waiting for her at the ticket desk, and a bus pass to Syracuse when she arrives a day later, and by the time she pulls up in her rental car to a stone house that vaguely reminds her of gingerbread cottages and forest manors, she’s been awake for about thirty-two hours and has nothing more to go on that this address and a name.

She gives herself a shake and resists the urge to smack herself in the face before getting out of the car and hopping up the interlocking path to lift the heavy knocker, her most disarming smile firmly in place. The cast iron hits its plate only twice before the deadbolt pulls back and the door swings open.

The woman standing on the other side surprises the _my car broke down, could I use your phone_ right out of her mouth but her smile only deepens, even as the bottom of her stomach feels like it’s fallen out.

“Hi there, Shaw.”

The glare she gets in return is positively stormy. “What the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, Laleh Saatchi is Shaw’s _mother_ , and she’s still processing that as Shaw drags her into an enclosed dining room and backs her into the door. The handle digs into her back painfully but she doesn’t say anything.

Shaw has a _mom_.

“Of course I have a mom,” Shaw bites out, looking very much like she wants to say something more profane and threatening, and Root realizes she said it aloud.

She tries to recover, twisting her chapped lips into the best smirk she can manage: “Well you know I’d always suspected that you fell from – ”

Shaw’s open hand slams into her mouth so hard her teeth hurt. “Shut _up._ Root. What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”

She doesn’t struggle, just laughs with her eyes until Shaw slowly, reluctantly, releases her death grip. “She sent me.”

“The Machine sent you,” she says, wiping the transferred lipstick on her palm onto her jeans. “Here. To my mother’s house.”

“I go where she tells me, but she doesn’t tell me everything about where I’m going.  Almost nothing, actually.  So here I am.”  The stoniness of Shaw’s face isn’t exactly encouraging, but Root tries for reassurance anyway.  “I really didn’t know.”

She stares her down for a minute that stretches out in the silence before coming to some kind of agreement with herself. “We got her number yesterday. Finch thinks – he thinks it’s Decima.”

Root doesn’t need Her to put the pieces together – Decima’s agents must have accessed the ISA’s databases, either directly or covertly, and known about Shaw’s defection which means their influence is infiltrating the government’s shadowed halls but more importantly right now, it means Shaw’s mother is most definitely in danger.

"We need to move her," she breathes, her mind putting aside the unexpected hurdle that is Shaw's mother and racing ahead to tactics.  She isn't well-armed but Shaw will have undoubtedly packed an arsenal; they'll need to find a safe house and - 

" _We_ are not doing anything," Shaw says, breaking into her hurricane of thoughts and contingency planning.  "I moved her here after I left the ISA.  They don't know where she is."

"If you think Decima can't find this place -"

"Finch is watching.  He'll let me know if anyone's coming."

The voice in her ear informs her that Reese is preoccupied with a number on the other side of the country. "Shaw..."

"I won't move her," she says stubbornly – stupidly, Root thinks viciously – crossing her arms in a move that somehow looks less tough when she's leaning against the back of a formal dining chair.  "Not if I can help it."

She definitely should have stopped for a coffee or six.  "You can't do this alone."

Shaw sets her jaw and gives her a long look.  "I guess that's why she sent you."

 

* * *

 

_//138:18:29:41_

 

Tea.  There might be Decima agents coming for her only living parent and she's making tea while a machine-worshipping contract killer makes small talk with her mother.  It's almost irritating the way old habits kick in as she lifts the round tray and carries a full tea service into the living room without spilling a drop. 

"Thank you, _azizam_."  Her mother pats her hand as she takes the most neutral seat she can manage: the low armchair at the end of the coffee table, perpendicular to the loveseats currently occupied by two parts of her life she'd hoped would never meet. 

"You didn't tell me your friend would be visiting, Sameen; I would have made something," she admonishes, as if Root is somehow too precious for hibiscus tea and pistachio and honey biscuits when she knows that _that_  is the farthest thing from the truth. 

"She's _fine_ , Mom."

"I am, Ms. Saatchi, really," Root says with a smile as she sips daintily at her tea, the absolute picture of ladylike behaviour.  Shaw wants to throw a biscuit at her and settles for crushing one between her teeth instead. 

"Do you work with my Sameen, Miss Root?"

“Mom.”

“What?” she asks, all innocence, arched eyebrows and everything. “You never bring friends to visit.”

“I didn’t _bring_ her,” she grits out, refusing to look at the shit-eating grin Root is undoubtedly sporting. “She just showed _up._ ”

“ _Ay_ , Sameen,” she scolds, like she’s six years old, and it’s Root, unexpectedly, who comes to her (sort of) rescue.

“We work together, but Sameen is a bit more hands on.” (It occurs to her then that she has no idea what Shaw has told her mother she does for a living, but she’s pretty sure the truth isn’t it.)

“Root is good with computers,” she says grudgingly, breathing a sigh of relief when that tidbit sends her mom off on a different tangent entirely, taking Root along with her.

She’s good at this too, Shaw thinks to herself, watching them laugh and talk while the scent of hibiscus and honey soften her edges without her realizing. Talking to people, making them trust her; it’s something that she herself never picked up, and with a pang somewhere inside her chest, she wonders not for the first time what it would have been like if her perfectly lovely, normal mother had a daughter to match.

Sameen has never been normal, even before she knew all the words people would use to describe how not normal she is, but she had never doubted that her parents loved her anyway. She also never wondered if they ever doubted that she loved them back, but now she’s thinking that maybe she should have – to have a daughter that laughs more than she scowls, that makes pleasant conversation and settles down with a nice house in a nice town, that calls every week just because: all of those things that she can’t (won’t?) do.

There are texts so she knows she’s alive, and bank transfers every other week to pay the bills, and there are stilted phone calls every few months because what can you say to a mother who doesn’t know that you kill and/or maim people for a living?

The only thing she _can_ do, she tells herself, watching Root of all people charm her mother over tea and fucking biscuits, is keep her safe.

“ – and you must stay with us,” she’s saying.

Well that gets her attention.  "What?  Mom, _no_."

"Miss Root can have the guest room and you can share with me.  Then you'll have company on the trip back when you decide you're tired of putting up with your old mother."

And just like that, it's settled and Shaw is left trying to figure out when exactly she lost control of the situation (she suspects it happened the second she walked through the front door).  Her phone goes off before she can lodge even a token protest and as much as she really doesn't want to leave the two of them alone together, she doesn't have much of a choice. 

She stomps out to the kitchen before jabbing at the answer button.  "Finch."

 

* * *

 

They wait, like co-conspirators, for the low murmur of Shaw's voice to drift in from the kitchen.

Laleh Saatchi is not what Root expected to find when her address filtered into her left ear, but as Shaw's mother, there's something about the tiny woman that belies the steely strength hidden behind grey-streaked hair and delicate hands, that hardens her features and Root can see Sameen in her. 

"She doesn't really work at a hospital, does she?"

Root considers for half a second, pauses, and that is itself an answer.  "No."

"I didn't think so," she says conversationally, casually, and it's a pity Shaw didn't inherit any of her subtlety.  "She came to me a year ago, insisting I move here and not tell anyone where I was going.  Not exactly the norm for a trauma surgeon, eh?"

She doesn't know what to say, because she doesn't have anyone left to protect, no one left to lie to and call it love. 

"Is it dangerous?  What you're doing?"

There are a dozen lies she could tell, explanations and back stories that She could help fabricate in a minute.  "Yes."

The truth furrows a line in Laleh's forehead, years deep with worry; Root used to have one quite similar, when she cared.  It's nostalgic and bitter all at once, and she feels an inexplicable urge to say something: "We – she does good things.  She saves people."

The older woman grabs her hand suddenly, so quickly and firmly that her first instinct is to jerk away until she squeezes and it’s all so motherly that Root is frozen, struggling to breathe let alone move.

“Miss Root. Sameen…she won’t tell me if something’s wrong. I never know where she is or what she’s doing. I don’t need to know what she does, but I need to know if she’s safe.”

It’s a simple enough request, but far from easy to fulfill and she can’t bring herself to lie this time, to this woman. She doesn’t have to.

Laleh has perfect eyesight even at her age, and Root knows the instant she sees it, the flick of her gaze down to the inside of her wrist and she burns with the urge to pull her sleeve further down and cover the single ellipse. Whatever she suspects, Root doesn’t doubt for a moment that the other woman knows exactly when her daughter’s time will come, and her own bare fingers tell the rest of the story.

“It’s all right,” she hears herself say, tugging her hand loose with more calmness than she feels.

“It’s all right,” but this time the voice isn’t hers and the soft smile that tugs up the corner of her mouth in response doesn’t taste like pity. “It’ll be all right.”

 

* * *

 

Nothing happens. Night has fallen and her mother has found a _Jeopardy!_ marathon and – she realizes, glancing over at the window chaise – Root has fallen asleep and might, she squints, be drooling a little on the armrest. Nothing happens and the domesticity of it all is suffocating.

“Don’t ruin the furniture.” She doesn’t even realize she’s picking at the upholstery until her mother says it, looking at her from the corner of her eye before turning her attention back to Alex Trebek. If the woman hadn’t raised her, she would almost be fooled.

_Three…two…_

“Why did you come here, Sameen?”

She looks at her mother and sees a woman who is older than she remembers, more tired and worn, and it occurs to her for the first time that she won’t have forever to figure out how to be a slightly less shitty daughter.

It’s ridiculous, her guilt and the only person she loves in the world, the weird as hell snuffling sound Root apparently makes in her sleep, the firearms she'd hidden around the house within an hour of her arrival.  It adds up to this inexplicable urge to be honest with her mom for the first time in a decade because the numbers on her wrist might be ticking down but she's only just understanding what it means to be alone and it's in the zero that faded to the white of scar tissue the day her father died and it's in the blankness of Root's skin. 

"Mom, I'm not a doctor," she blurts out and immediately regrets it.  What the hell is she actually going to say?   _I left my residency after my service ended so then I joined a secret government intelligence agency and killed people for a living and then they tried to kill me too so I made you move to New York even though you hate winter.  And now I work for some rich guy and his supercomputer.  Oh yeah, my 'friend' you like so much also thinks it's God._

She can't.  

As it turns out, she doesn't get a choice about it, because Root jerks awake with a distant look on her face that Shaw doesn't know how she recognizes but she does.

"Shaw. It’s Decima."

She knows.  This is what she was meant to do, and she's always been better at showing than telling.  The Glock she'd shoved between the cushions is in her hand and her mom is staring at her with an expression she doesn't know how to read. 

"Sameen – "

"Two minutes," Root interrupts, and it spurs her into action. 

"Bedroom closet," she barks, and she's half-dragging her mother up the stairs, ignoring her protests.  Root follows, arming herself along the way, her hands and eyes guided by the voice in her ear.  

She pushes her into the walk-in closet, cutting her off, "Mom, I need you to trust me.  You need to stay here until I come to get you.  Don't leave this room for anything.  Root is going to stay here with you."

The other woman's mouth is already open in protest, "Shaw, I can help, you can't do this – "

"Shut up," she bites off, snapping on a holster.  "I don't need to tell you what happens if you fuck up."

That, more than the command, is what silences her and tightens her grip on her weapon as she nods. 

She's like a walking arsenal but there's no armour in the mix; deadly but vulnerable and slightly batshit crazy as she shuts the closet door that locks with an unexpectedly pneumatic hiss and encases them in the darkness of what Root has only just recognized is a panic room. 

Almost immediately, She begins piping in information, positions and movements outside of the house and all it does is make her itch to burst from the closet and help.  Shaw will take limbs and mobility and it isn't enough; everyone is a threat until they’re dead and she’s not sure if Shaw will remember that.

“Miss Root?”

She almost laughs, right there in the dark. “It’s just Root.”

“Root, then. Why is Sameen – what is _happening_ , I don’t…” Laleh trails off and Root can’t blame her.

(The house has been breached and she’s straining to hear something, anything.)

She speaks quietly, her voice getting swallowed up by the clothes and shoeboxes that line the walls.  “There are people, dangerous people, who are coming here. For you.”

To take her, to kill her…whatever Decima has planned for her, it isn’t going to happen.  She’s sure enough of that.  The silence stretches invisibly as they both contemplate exactly what that means.

“Why me?”

She is blind inside this house but she thinks she can hear the dull echo of suppressed gunfire, which at least means that Shaw is alive.  It’s a cold comfort, because if the woman sitting next to her was anyone else, she’d be out there too.  She swallows against the knot in her throat that might be her heart.

“Because Sameen loves you.”

Laleh grabs her wrist.  “We can’t just sit here. If there are bad people out there, with Sameen…”

Root sucks in a breath, considers for long minutes that pass like seconds to the pace of her increasing pulse.  “Can you unlock the door?”

The response is near instantaneous – the slide of oiled metal on metal and she’s going to take that as approval. She clambers to her feet. “You’re staying here.”

“Like _hell_ I am,” she hisses, her faint accent thickening.

“Can you shoot?”

“I’m a quick learner.”

She can’t see Laleh’s face but she imagines that her resemblance to Shaw is showing.  Shaw, who is absolutely going to fucking _kill_ her.

 

* * *

 

The blood dripping down her arm is more annoying than the sting of the graze that’s causing it, her hair is falling in her eyes, and she might have fractured a rib at some point, but none of it stops her from baring her teeth in a mockery of a smile at the only agent still conscious.

“You can kill me, but you can’t stop us.”  The high back of the dining chair she’s been zip tied to accentuates the rigidity of her posture.  Or it might be the bullet lodged in her shoulder or either one of her shattered kneecaps.

Shaw leans against the archway, gun at her side.  “I thought you people were into the hara-kiri, so I figure you’ll take care of that yourself. What I want to know is why you’re here.”

The blonde woman spits blood. “You know why.”

“Hm.” Her dominant hand moves slightly, pulls deliberately and unemotionally. There’s something about what a suppressor does to the sound of a gunshot that she’s always enjoyed; the way it changes the resulting entry wound is a newer fascination – the blood that blooms red and messy on the woman’s left wrist is particularly satisfying.

“You _bitch_ ,” she breathes through gritted teeth, and the fact that it’s _this_ that provokes a reaction is as pathetic as it is boring.

Maybe she’ll let her live.

“Sameen?”

Oh fuck no.

She already knows what she's going to see when she turns to look behind her: Root looks guilty but stubborn and her mom is this mix of terrified and angry that looks strange on her and - "Did you give her a _gun_?"

"Forearmed is forewarned?" Root offers before her gaze slides off centre.  "There are more coming, Shaw.  You can yell at me later; we have to go."

Fuck.  She takes the gun from her mother and hustles her upstairs to pack whatever she needs before she can do something Shaw can't deal with, like cry. 

Two minutes and everything changes.  Somehow Root is the last to leave the house; the revving of the rental car's engine as Shaw turns the key in the ignition almost masks the sound of a single gunshot that makes her mother jump in the backseat. 

Root slides into the passenger seat seconds later, oddly bright-eyed despite the hard line of her mouth.  "Come on, sweetie.  Time to go."


	4. Every second, dripping off my fingertips

Shaw waits until her mother is settled in bed with a sleeping pill, with the curtains drawn and the door closed before reaching into the well-stocked bar of whoever actually owns the apartment the Machine directed them to.  A large drink and an open first aid kit on the counter and a glare that should swallow her up with its blackness: Shaw is quietly murderous.  

She should have slipped away, listened to her infallible sense of self-preservation and escaped.  But she didn't and she doesn't; she can't move because leaving now is abandonment even if it's also survival. 

"If anything happens to her because of you, I will end you."

Root meets her gaze unflinchingly; somewhere between a transatlantic flight, suburban Syracuse, and uptown Manhattan, she has begun to find something like acceptance for whatever it is that draws her to this woman.  "I know."

Shaw looks at her for a long moment that feels like it lasts an eternity, like she's on a glass slide under the lens of a microscope, on the verge of incineration.  Somehow it's then, grounded to dark laminate flooring and hardly daring to breathe in an apartment that seems to have run out of air that Root thinks that Shaw is right: she's going to be the end of her. 

"Okay," Shaw says before tearing into an apple plucked out of a stainless steel fruit bowl.  The sharp tang of red apple mixes with the woodsy scent of sour mash bourbon and Root swallows the ridiculous urge to find out how they taste together on Shaw's lips.  God, she needs sleep.

"She should be safe here until we can find something permanent," she ignores the way Shaw's eyebrows quirk at _we_ , "but if Samaritan comes online, we'll all be targeted.  And Decima knows about you now, Shaw."

“Then we stop Samaritan.”

If only it was so easy. But there’s still time, enough at least to stop for a little, breathe a little, and try to compile her bits and pieces back into something that feels like herself.

Shaw winces as she straightens up and She provides a tentative diagnosis of a hairline fracture to rib 8 on the left; Root’s fingers just brush the edge of the first aid kit as Shaw stomps off to the bathroom and closes the door behind herself with an incongruously soft click.

By the time she emerges, dressed in someone else’s clothes that are too big and too long for her, her hair dripping water on someone else’s floor, Root is crammed onto the two-seater, apparently asleep on her side. A floorboard creaks under her bare feet and the light filtering through the drawn curtains is enough for her to see Root’s eyes snap open at the sound. “Shaw?”

The leather of the sofa is cool against her leg, even through the sweatpants she found that are hanging off her hips. She looks down at her, considers the way the her body sinks into the expensive furniture, all smooth skin stretched over long muscles that don’t seem to tense at all even though she’s been standing over her for at least a minute now.

Maybe it’s the fatigue. Maybe that’s why she finds herself crouching down without thinking, until she’s at eye level with the woman who always finds a way to keep her off balance and make her (deep, deep down) enjoy the vertigo.

Root watches her silently, and though she can see her chest rise and fall, Shaw can only hear the sound of her own breathing, steady and even. Her cheekbones look sharp as knives in the half-light and her thumb is testing the edge before she can hesitate. She doesn’t bleed and she’s pressing her lips against hers, soft and dry, and she isn’t sure who moved first.

Heat curls inside her, lazy and warm, and feels like something between _please_ and _thank you_. She pulls away the moment the tip of Root’s tongue threatens to ignite something she isn’t sure she can stop.

She doesn’t meet Root’s eyes as she stretches out on the adjacent full-length sofa, though she feels her gaze burning into her back.

“Good night, Sameen,” comes quietly, tingling up her spine.

She lies there with her eyes open until she can hear Root’s breathing even out, deep and slow, before letting herself fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

_//0_

 

Root wakes to a whistling kettle and the clink of ceramic mugs on granite countertop.  Laleh smiles at her from the other side of the kitchen island, unexpectedly cheerful for someone who'd had her home violated by half a dozen Decima agents less than twelve hours ago.  "Good morning, my dear."

She wonders what happened in the last day to warrant an upgrade from 'Miss Root' to 'my dear'.  Her joints absolutely scream in relief as she unfolds herself and gets to her feet that have clearly lost circulation at some point in the night. 

"Sameen went out to get some supplies," she offers, watching Root's eyes dart around the rest of the apartment, before patting the counter.  "Come have breakfast."

Her mouth is tacky and she's dying for a shower but there is no one else between this woman and the world outside.  She balances herself on a barstool and reaches gratefully for the juice she's offered.  The glass is half-empty when it's accompanied by a cup of black instant coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast, and it is literally the first time she can remember someone making breakfast for her. 

The coffee is strong and hot; she scalds her tongue and ignores the burning sensation at the corners of her eyes. 

"Sameen explained a little to me," Laleh says, the hesitation in her words the only outward sign of discomfort as she sips placidly from her own mug.  "Thank you for coming to help me."

Apparently it's just a morning for firsts.  It's completely unfair that she's the most off-kilter person in the room when the only other occupant is a woman who may have found out her not-a-doctor daughter is a slightly ex-assassin.  She bites into a triangle of toast and swallows the response she doesn't have. 

Laleh watches her, deciding carefully before speaking again.  "My husband and I weren't on time."

Root's gaze snaps up from her plate to meet her eyes before looking away just as quickly, almost embarrassed by her reaction.  “Oh?”

“For me, it was everything people tell you about; my time came the moment I met him. I was raised to believe in fate, that the universe would bring my soulmate to me, and it did. But Sameen’s father wasn’t at all what I expected, and I don’t think that I was what he imagined either.”

Her attention shifts to something outside of the room, some when and someone lost but not forgotten, as she rests her forearms on the cold counter and wraps her hands around her mug for warmth.

“It was two months before his time came, and I hid my mark and wondered every day if I was destined to be an unrequited, if the person I was meant for wasn’t meant for me.”

“But he was,” Root says in spite of herself, her voice dry and brittle. Unconsciously, she tugs her sleeves a little lower, succumbing to a lifetime habit that has only grown and strengthened with the tendril of dread that curls around her heart when she isn’t looking. Sometimes she forgets that she doesn't believe. 

"He was," she agrees gently.  "But who's to say that if something had been different, if I had taken a wrong turn or missed a light along the way, that things would have happened the way they did?  People need time.  Some more than others."

 

* * *

 

_//93:19:06_

 

She's fucking pissed, and the dull thuds of her heeled boots on aged wood and cracked marble underscore the point: Shaw is not a happy camper.  That she can _feel_  Reese thinking that she's overreacting is as irritating as the fact that his longer stride keeps him easily just a pace or two behind her. 

"Where is she?"

"Where is whom?" Finch asks, as if being calm will inspire a similar composure in her.  

" _Root._ "

"I believe Ms. Groves was called away on...other business.  She said to tell you not to worry," Harold says, as if he doesn't know full well that he's enabling Root to be annoying by proxy.  "And that she intends to replenish whatever she took from your fridge the next time she's in town.  Despite your appreciation for the culinary arts, I'm not sure that petty theft warrants _this_ reaction, Ms. Shaw.”

She's pretty sure she deflates visibly, like a hot air balloon collapsing in on itself and burning grumpiness for fuel; it's easier than explaining to Finch what else she actually keeps in her fridge. 

"She's the one who should be worried," she huffs, feeling only slightly like a child as she rubs Bear's ear like a consolation prize.

"Told you," Reese throws out unhelpfully, returning the extra firepower to the locker the way they're supposed to do.  She flips him off in response and ignores Harold's wince of distaste and the way Reese only half-smiles.  "Surprised she didn't tell you where she was going, considering how...chummy the two of you have gotten.”

“We are not _chummy,_ ” she huffs, throwing herself onto the one comfortable sofa in the whole damn place and throwing a smug smile at Reese as Bear follows to settle down by her side.

Chummy.  With Root.  That might be true only in comparison to the weird understanding she has going with Finch or the utter disdain she has for Reese.  And she supposes that the woman does seem to pop into her life at unexpected if not altogether unwelcome moments.  Still.  Chummy.  As if. "Since when do either of you trust her with anything anyway?"

“Ms. Groves has proven herself to be a formidable and seemingly permanent addition to our team.  I think we have to acknowledge that our objectives, while varied at times, need not be in conflict,” Harold offers from behind his computer screen.  “I believe we can learn to cooperate.  Perhaps you might be of assistance in…bridging our differences, Ms. Shaw?” 

"Why me?"

"Because you're –" Reese starts. 

" _Don't_ say chummy," she warns him, looking over her shoulder to back it up with a glare.  

He stares at her strangely and she catches Finch's concerned uncle expression at the corner of her eye. 

" _What?"_

"Thought you were more observant than that, Shaw," Reese says finally before making one of his customary unannounced exits, before she can find something to throw at him. 

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Well," Finch says delicately like she's a bomb that might go off, "Ms. Groves and yourself seem to have established a certain kind of rapport over the last few weeks.  I suppose that we thought, that is to say that we _assumed_  that in spite of your mutual, er, _distaste_ for company and the lack of _synchronization_ between your –"

"Finch.  Spit it out."

"Are you not...attached?" he asks, clearly as uncomfortable with the conversation as he is confused by how they even got on the topic.  Fucking Reese. 

She doesn't _consider_  his question exactly, not like there's an even a remote chance that there's a shred of validity to him asking.  But she can't quite deny that Root has become this recurring...thing in her life that isn't unpleasant.  She might miss her if she didn't have a nasty habit of turning up all the time.  Maybe. 

Except, she remembers, Root has swanned off again, this time without a word, and there's something about the whole situation that makes her itch with discomfort that rapidly turns into anger. It really is what she knows best, and it catalyzes a reaction in her that launches her off the sofa and stomping out gracelessly. 

Harold purses his lips thoughtfully, putting the whole incident out of his mind, but not before wondering briefly if Ms. Shaw realizes that she never answered his question. 

 

* * *

 

_//0_

She keeps her distance for a while and throws herself into Her missions, a dozen objectives that hint and tease at the bigger picture and that will be enough to sustain her.  It's all she ever wanted, after all.

The days pass in a blur as she crosses time zones and the date line, back and forth, and she thinks she's figuring out how to do this, how to be herself, and those times She sends her to New York, she thinks she's learning how to be whatever Shaw will let her be.

Sometimes it’s drinks in whatever bar she happens to find her in, or popping by in the late evening with a pizza box burning one hand and a pair of icy beers freezing the other, or a call in the middle of the day just to be distracting. It might be a last-minute drop-in on dealing with Finch’s latest number, a gun in each hand and smirking at the way Shaw rolls her eyes at her scattershot approach.

It doesn't take long to realize that detachment has never actually been her thing, and never really will be.  There are so very few who matter, but those who do are indelible, a stain smeared along her rib cage.

It'll be okay, she thinks, and maybe this is a kind of strength that her mother never had; it's a cruel but honest thought, and she holds fast to it like a lifeline.

 

* * *

 

_//11:03:19:37_

 

The thing about an AI with access to every camera in the country is that it's near impossible to hide in a city as populated as New York with its smartphones and security cameras at every turn.  It leads to the numbers that have defined her life for the last few years and she's never thought much of it, not until Cole died and not until Root started walking around with the Machine in her ear.  

And apparently being her interface trumps being her gun hand, because she always manages to find her, even sitting under an otherwise unremarkable tree in an unremarkable corner of Central Park.  It's a small pleasure, these quiet minutes and hours, detached from the rest of the world even in the middle of Manhattan.  It's something like peace, or at least the closest she gets. 

"I always hated summer," Root's voice carries on the warm breeze from the other side of the ancient tree.  "But then again I grew up in Texas.  This is better."

It's surprisingly hard to be irritated with her for breaking her solitude when she's like this.  She pushes her off-guard and before she can think about running, she draws her back in with exasperating predictability: “Did you miss me?”

“You know it’s really not playing fair to use the Machine to find people whenever you want.”

Root’s hair must be loose, because the wind picks up a curl that feels like silk as it brushes against her cheek (she’s tempted to catch it and fling it back at the annoying woman, or something); she can’t see her without craning her neck, but she can picture the mischievous gleam in brown eyes, the sharp cuspids that add bite to the flirty smile.

“Are we playing, Sameen? You haven’t told me what the rules are.”

“I thought you were the one who liked games,” she says after a moment’s hesitation, hating the way she can feel herself smiling and thanking God no one can see her. She feels the shift of heavy summer air that tells her that Root has moved and doesn’t bother to straighten her face as she looks up, up, up at her.

“Is that what we’re doing?” she asks, more softly than Shaw expects.

There isn’t any teasing or coyness in Root’s face, and that stoppers the flip response that hovers on Shaw’s tongue because if she’s really, really honest with herself in a way that she (almost) never is, she can’t quite bring herself to say something that will hurt the other woman when she looks like this. As a rule, she’s hard but she isn’t cruel.

She looks away, lowers her gaze, and that’s when she sees it, the sharp black _0_ on her pale skin and doesn’t doubt for a moment that Root knows what she’s seen. “What – ”

“It’s nothing,” she says, but she wraps her arms around herself anyway.

Her throat feels like it’s closing up, like sudden onset anaphylaxis and she _cannot_ understand the reaction she is having right now. “How long have you had that?”

“A while.” She shifts her weight and Shaw wishes that she would either sit down or walk away because she hates looking up at her like this but she can’t move either.

“Who – ” the thought dawns on her suddenly, “oh my God, is it the _Machine?_ ”

Root’s mouth twists wryly as her posture relaxes into something familiar but still somehow wrong. She can’t put her finger on it. “Don’t worry about it, Shaw. I’ll see you around, okay?"

It’s light and careless, and it’s too sudden a change from the somber version of Root who’d been staring down at her just a minute ago, on the verge of breaching that unspoken _something_ that’s been hovering between them since Syracuse and maybe before that, to go unnoticed.

She doesn’t miss the way Root’s eyes flick down to the changing numbers on her own wrist before doing her best to saunter away, but she lets her go anyway, because she isn’t as oblivious as she sometimes pretends to be and Reese isn’t as wrong as she’d like him to be.

The summer breeze isn’t as warm as it was just minutes ago; this kind of suspicion runs cold and slow and –

Shit.

 

* * *

 

_//0_

"Hello, Harry," she chirps, striding into the safe house like the triple locked door was thrown wide open in anticipation of her arrival.  She plunks an external drive onto his currently cluttered desktop, her care for the fragile device in direct contrast to the carelessness with which she hops up onto the sofa table, balancing on the narrow ledge. 

"She'd like you to take a look at the contents of that, please.  The sooner the better," she nods at the black enclosure.

"Ms. Groves," he acknowledges, plugging the device into his laptop, wryly contemplating the fact that six or seven months ago, he would have performed a dozen diagnostics on the drive before allowing it to connect to his network.  How things change.  "I trust that you are well."

"Eh."  She slides off her perch, settling for wandering the perimeter of the room, restless and twitchy as her fingers brush the spines of the books that line the walls. 

"Non-committal as ever, I take it," he comments, only half-watching her peruse the contents of a curio cabinet, the rest of his attention engaged by the curious contents of the hard drive.   ("Only when it comes to the trivial," is the reply he barely hears.) It takes only a few minutes to latch onto the gist of the elegant code that draws him in, reading deeper into the complexities to grasp its magnitude. 

When he re-emerges, it could be minutes or hours later (code has always been curiously timeless that way). And he only then realizes that Root has been sneaking glances at him as she circles the apartment, round and round. 

"Ms. Groves," he says, slightly less calm than usual. 

Her closed smile tells him that she understands.  "What do you think, Harry?"

"It's very impressive," he says simply, and watches her expression blossom with pleasure. 

"I had help, of course," she says, all pseudo-modesty that masks the honest humility that separates them – he isn’t sure how he measures up. She sidles over to look at the laptop screen. “She found a gateway; small, but it’ll do.”

“How will you gain access?” he asks, already guessing at what she’s planning. The sardonic tilt of her head only encourages his suspicions. “Samaritan will undoubtedly have all of its nodes well guarded.”

“I always manage,” she shrugs, but looks away.

“I’m sure Mr. Reese or Ms. Shaw would be happy to assist.”

“Really, Harry. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself,” she says, hair swinging like a curtain to obscure her face as she leans forward to detach the drive. “One of us will let you know when it’s done.”

He swivels in his chair, turning to watch as the drive disappears under her jacket and she moves to depart as abruptly as she came. “Ms. Groves, why did you come here? You obviously don’t need my help with that.”

Root pauses at the door, considering, hesitating, before looking back and making eye contact for the first time since she walked through the door. “Harold. In a few days, if you don’t hear anything, would you tell Shaw that – would you tell her – ”

“I think you should probably tell her yourself,” he tells her, more gently than he thought he could.

She smiles and it might be the first real one he’s seen from her; somehow it’s sadder than it should be. “Bye, Harry.”


	5. In slow motion, the blast is beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter - short but hopefully satisfying!

_//06:00:28_

 

It's her day off, so when her phone lights up with a set of GPS coordinates, Shaw’s not exactly happy about it.  With Samaritan on the verge of coming online, days off don't actually mean much anymore, but Finch usually goes for those niceties like _would you_ _please_  and _thank you_.

He picks up on the first ring.  "Are we doing the whole mission impossible lame ass spy texts now, Finch?"

She can _hear_  him frowning as he processes that.  "I'm sure I have no idea to what you are referring, Ms. Shaw."

"GPS coordinates.  To my phone.  Like a minute ago."

"Hm."  Her earpiece floods with the sound of rapid typing and why does it not surprise her in the slightest that he has access to all of their phones and probably anything else with a processor.  "Ah."

"Use your words, Finch."

"I think that it would be best to discuss this in person.  Perhaps you could come by the safe house?"

Ugh.  She ends the call without replying, grabs her jacket off the back of her only dining chair, and is out the door in under a minute.  It takes forty to get across town, which is about twice as much time as she needs to be completely over it.  She tells Finch as much as the door swings shut behind her. 

"Ms. Groves paid me a visit yesterday."  He's leaning heavily on his cane, if his words aren't enough for her to put aside her irritation for now.  "She, with the help of the Machine, has developed a weapon that will greatly assist our efforts in overcoming Samaritan if successfully deployed."

Weapons are her forte, not Root's; that's the first thought that goes through her mind, even knowing that this isn't going to be the kind of weapon she's used to.  But any kind of move against the rival AI is certainly going to be met with opposition, agents that will undoubtedly be armed with the kind of firepower with which she is most definitely an expert. 

Root is a fucking idiot.  "And the coordinates?”

“I can only assume that the Machine has chosen to request your assistance.”

She’s already moving, ransacking the locker with a vicious sense of purpose as she arms herself to the teeth.  (He watches, still bemused as to how someone so short in stature can manage to conceal such an arsenal.)

“Ms. Shaw, it would be best if you waited until Mr. Reese can provide backup – ”

“Your Machine should have thought of that before she called me,” she says grimly, stalking out of the apartment with a slam.

Harold fumbles for his phone, tapping out a long series of numbers in a text that leaves his phone silently and pings in John Reese’s inner jacket pocket a second later.  Returning to his desk, he takes an unsteady breath in and glances at the tiny camera at the top of the centre screen. “Please be careful.”

 

* * *

 

_//0_

 

The building runs on a closed system, secured well beyond the needs of the average data centre, which means that she’s been running blind since she stepped onto the premises six minutes ago.

It’s a long time to be alone when everyone in the building would kill you without a second thought if they knew what you were carrying – it’s odd how it’s now, posing as a rookie security guard and openly armed, that she feels a flutter of nervousness in the pit of her stomach that she never does when she’s out in the open being shot at.

Maybe it’s because they’re so close to a chance to end this, or because today’s the day that – well, today’s the day, Root tells herself, stopping the thought there.  She bypasses the electronic security lock easily – algorithmic flaws are delightful – and slips into the server room.

The racks hum, buzz with power and slumbering life that, if she has anything to do with it, will never wake up.

 

* * *

 

_//04:12:29_

 

Shaw counts four bodies – unconscious, not dead – as she makes her way through the building, following the trail of destruction like breadcrumbs.  Gunshots echo down concrete corridors and she follows the sound, counting the beats and measuring the cadence.

(The rapid staccato of a careless duet tell her she’s getting close.)

She takes out another two guards before finding her, pinned down in a room full of computer shit, bleeding through her dark shirt.  Root looks up at her with eyes that are too bright in a face that is too pale, managing a half-smile.

“Oh good, I was running out of ammo,” she tells her before abandoning her weapons in favour of the narrow keyboard set into one of the towers, her fingers flying over the keys with a speed that’s somehow reminiscent of the way she shoots.  Figures.

Cover is good but visibility is shit, she curses under her breath, half-regretting the rule of non-fatality she's expected to follow.  "How much time do you need?"

"Two minutes," she replies without looking away from the screen for an instant. 

Root manages it - whatever it is - in ninety six seconds, but Shaw still does one better: the only noises other than the rapid tapping of keys are the pained groans of reconstructive surgery's newest patients. 

She leads, tracing her steps cautiously, acutely aware of Root's uneven breathing and slowed pace behind her.  If she were less practiced, she would ache with the iron tension that seizes every one of her muscles with tightly coiled energy, ready to react on instinct alone.  She's dangerous, and it's a blessing that Root doesn't speak – or worse, try to touch her – until they're clear.

They drive away, and there's something nonchalant about it – no speeding away with squealing tires and overheated rubber for them.  They merge onto the Interstate and Shaw shoves a small towel at Root with instructions to _put pressure on that already_ with a gruffness and a glare that makes her feel like she's been thrown into a tar pit, into quicksand. 

She's sinking. 

"She shouldn't have told you," she says, breaking twenty-two miles of silence, and cringing at how whiny she sounds to her own ears.  "You didn't have to come."

"Didn't I?" she asks, changing to the leftmost lane and cursing out the shitty drivers that insist on getting in her way under her breath.  “Unless failing was the plan.”

“I wouldn’t have failed,” she insists, but her conviction shakes as Shaw reaches out, unimpressed with her half-hearted attempts at self-aid, and practically _shoves_ the folded towel more firmly against the wound.

Root hisses and Shaw shakes her head in irritation.

“Don’t be a baby.” She wants to tell her that it’s still failure if you end up dead but there’s something of hypocrisy in there that she doesn’t really want to think about.  It’s much easier to just be pissed at her. “We’re a team, Root.”

She’s not sure that anyone other than Shaw and maybe Harold would include her when thinking about their little band of misfits.  It could be the blood loss or the shock, but the terseness in Shaw’s voice pulls the strain from her body, leaving only heavy fatigue that tugs at her eyelids and sinks into her bones.

“Don’t try this kind of shit again,” she hears Shaw say, and she thinks she hums out an agreement just before giving in to the blackness creeping at the edge of everything.

 

* * *

 

The rattle of the air conditioner maintaining a slight chill in the air and on her skin where she isn’t covered by the duvet and the smoothness of well-washed six hundred thread count sheets let her know that she’s in Shaw’s bedroom even before she opens her eyes.  She’s only been here once before, but the small space is familiar even in the dark.

Her fingers brush against the roughness of thick cotton and tape, neat and efficient, and she wonders how she managed to miss what she assumes was Shaw patching her up.

Root sits up slowly, gingerly sliding her legs over the edge of the bed.  The sheets fall away and her skin prickles with goosebumps, and she realizes belatedly that her shirt is missing.  A shiver tingles its way down her nerve endings and it has nothing to do with the air conditioning and everything to do with the utterly stupid ellipse that's exposed for everyone – for Shaw – to see.

Well, it's not like she didn't know, she thinks, trying to sound matter-of-fact and not at all bitter, if only to herself. 

"Are you there?" she asks quietly. 

_Yes._

Her voice is better than any analgesic, though if she's honest, the dull-sharp-dull pain every time she moves is kind of nice.  "Did it work?"

 _Insertion was successful.  Monitoring progress._ A pause.  _You require rest._

"Later," she promises.  She takes a charcoal grey tank top from a dresser drawer full of shirts that look the same and contemplates the likelihood of Shaw noticing if one went missing as she tugs it on.  Her arms are bare and she feels naked, exposed, and unsure as to whether she likes it or not. 

The kitchen fluorescents burn her eyes and paint Shaw in sharp lines of bright light and shadow that underscore the planes of her features and the curvature of her form.  She looks up, dark-eyed and assessing, before halving a thick sandwich with an unnecessarily large knife and pushing a plate across the counter at her general direction.  “You should eat something.”

She devours half before saying anything, the combination of dark nut-studded bread and duck and lettuce and bacon flooding her mouth with flavour she hasn't had in months; she didn't realize how _hungry_ she was.  Shaw keeps pace with her easily, but the arch of her eyebrow doesn't go unnoticed.  

"Thank you."

Shaw watches her demolish the remaining half, wondering at the difference between the lady who sipped tea in her mother's living room and the woman who's ripping into greasy duck meat and crunching into cold lettuce like she's imitating her.  Root seems to change without warning, donning and discarding masks and personalities on whim, and she's not sure if she knows what's real. 

She's licking her fingers clean and she's not – for once – trying to be provocative about it, and she's smiling with just her eyes and Shaw decides then and there that she wants to know.  She can do whims too. 

"Now what?"

Root freezes before pulling her index finger out of her mouth.  "Well," she says slowly, "it'll take some time before we know if it worked.  So it's best if we all lay low for a while."

She doesn't bother asking what _it_  is; Reese tried explaining something about recursive modifications to the base something or other and she doesn't think he understood what he was saying any better than she did listening to him.  The point is that they're alive, and she's up nine kneecaps on him thanks to his missing the party (and her vastly superior marksmanship).

"We?"

She sees her falter in the drop of her shoulders and the fall of her fingers and feels like she's peeling back paper-thin layers of steel and deceit.  

"Aren't we a team?" she asks, trying for playful and falling short.

“Are we?  Teammates don’t go off on kamikaze missions without telling anyone.”

“It wasn’t _kamikaze_ , really – ”

“Don’t,” she says, and she’s suddenly so irrationally, so intensely angry that it feels like it’s going to burn through her skin. “Just fucking don’t.”

Root stills completely.  “I don’t know what you want from me.”

She doesn’t know, and that’s at least half of their problem; she can’t stand the way Root is looking at her and the scavenged futon that composes the remainder of her living room furniture is the farthest she can get away without leaving the room.

“Shaw?”

“I want you to be real, okay?  For once, for one minute, can you just stop pretending to be whatever you think is going to get you what you want?” she spits.  “Can you just be yourself for a second, whoever the fuck that is?”

She pushes her hair out of her face and if she had the presence of mind for it, she would stop now but she’s tired and frustrated and falling off the edge of whatever this is and she is damn well taking Root down with her.

“Why do you care?” Root asks, something rigid and unyielding underpinning the quietness of her voice.  “Why do you care what I do, Sameen? You don’t get to act like you don’t believe, like these stupid fucking _numbers_ don’t mean anything, like you don’t _care_ and then be like _this._ ”

She wants to punch her.  She really, really does, and she’s not sure if the fist she makes with her dominant hand is self-restraint or something else.  It tightens, and her blunt nails dig into the palm of her hand, as Root steps closer, as brazen and mocking as ever.

“She sent me,” she says.  “She, the Machine, whatever, sent me after you and I went, without thinking and without backup – _not_ that I fucking need it – because I knew, I _knew_ that you were out there being a fucking idiot and were going to get yourself killed.”

Shaw glares at her, stormy and lethal.  “I never asked for this. I never asked for _you_.”

Inexplicably, infuriatingly, Root smiles, and it’s such an inappropriate response to the bite of Shaw’s words that her scowl deepens as if this isn’t exactly what she’s learned to expect.

“I’ve been waiting for you my whole life,” Root says simply, and for once there isn’t a trace of innuendo or flirtatiousness in it and maybe this moment was the one she’d been looking for without knowing it.  “For years, I was convinced that you didn’t even exist. And I was okay with that.”

Root laughs a little, this ephemeral sound that has nothing to do with humour, closing the distance between them in measures.  “You don’t have to do anything. I don’t expect you to be anything. It’s okay, Sameen. I’m okay.”

It’s the perfect exit, a loophole on a silver platter, and even as she hesitates, she feels the toxicity that fuelled her seeping away into nothingness, like drawing venom from a snakebite.  It leaves her numb and aching in turns, because she doesn’t know what to do with Root now and she doesn’t know what to do with herself.  (Root smells like gunpowder and antiseptic and soap and she doesn’t know what to do with that either.)

Turns out, she doesn’t need to know, because this moment isn’t in her control and maybe it never was and maybe that’s all that fate is.  Root grasps her wrist, surprisingly gentle as she turns it up to the light.  “Sameen.”

She feels calmer than Root sounds, her attention captured by the few numbers that remain, shifting with every heartbeat under Root’s fingers.

“ _Sameen._ You’re running out of time.”  Root sounds more nervous than Shaw feels, urgency colouring every word that fall on deaf ears.

Later, she won’t be sure when she decides; she won’t be able to identify the precise moment that she knows, and it won’t really matter. She meets Root’s gaze steadily, solidly, and realizes that fate was a choice all along. “I don’t give a shit.”

The end sears itself into her flesh – the pain is sharp and lingering; but she doesn’t flinch because she’s had two and a half decades when a century wouldn’t be enough to be anything close to prepared for this damn woman.  Root is looking at her with shining eyes and a smile that is threatening to break onto lips bitten blood red, all hope and wonder and expectation, but she doesn’t move any closer.

“Oh for god’s sake,” she huffs, pulling Root into her and tilting her head up to capture her idiot mouth.  She can feel the shape of her infuriating smile against her lips and bites down on her bottom lip hard enough to feel the sharp breath Root takes.  Her thumb finds the hollow of her jaw and this time, when she can taste the heat of her, when she pulls, Root follows. 

Someone makes a noise deep in their throat and it vibrates through them both; the resonance is intoxicating.  She wants to strip her down to the core and find out what's left.  She hears her name curling over long slopes of pale skin, miles and miles of scarred silk, and smiles.

 

* * *

 

This is what fate looks like:

It is chemistry and time, a sharply angled  _0_  over the steady rhythm of a strong pulse, carrying blood and oxygen and life.  It's a kick in the pants, a reminder to get off your ass.  It's a shared space and limbs sprawled across cotton sheets and poorly aimed kisses on turned cheeks.  

It's the feeling of knowing; it's a marksman's moving target and the last words of a childhood story and all the rationale you'll never need. 

It's the start and end of you.

 

 _Once upon a time_ , she says one night to the ceiling, _the gods split everyone into two.  Everyone was doomed to walk the earth in search of their lost half, condemned to always long for that missing part of themselves, without which they will never be whole._

_And in this world a little girl grew up, never thinking that she had any hope of finding her mate, and she thought that she might not have another half at all. Until one day, when she was much older, she met –_

_Root,_ she growls and rolls over, throwing an arm around her waist like an iron band that steals the breath from her lungs.

_Yeah?_

_Shut up._


End file.
